


I took the stars from my eyes (and then I made a map)

by blackkat



Series: Tumblr Drabbles [99]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, M/M, Obito tries to be melodramatic, Redemption, Romance, only to have his #aesthetic ruined by Iruka's practicality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 18:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15824280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Iruka wakes to silence, a rare break in the constant rain.





	I took the stars from my eyes (and then I made a map)

Iruka wakes to silence, a rare break in the constant rain. The other side of the bed is empty, the covers carelessly thrown back, and when he stretches out a hand the sheets are cold with no trace of lingering body heat. A little concerned, he sits up, glancing around the bare room, but he can't pick out any other presence. The hush is almost eerie, and the light is low in the way of a rainy dawn, pearlescent and pale as it filters through the tall windows lining the room. Their wrought-iron edging casts strange half-there shadows on the floor, just dark enough to have definition, and there's a whisper of breeze across Iruka’s bare skin.

Containing a shiver, Iruka slides of the warmth of the blankets, grabbing the yukata hanging from one of the bedposts. It’s thin, but warm enough, and he belts it loosely as he follows the curl of wind to the far end of the vast room. It’s the entire top floor of one of the towering spires that dot Ame’s skyline, and Iruka had hated the pretension of it until he saw the view. Until he saw the hard-won peace cross his lover’s face the first time they slept here instead of in Iruka’s rooms at the tower’s base, shadowed with neon colors and insulated from the rain by the lean of the surrounding buildings.

That peace is absent now, he can see, just looking at the set of broad shoulders. Perched like a gargoyle, Iruka thinks, and can't help a small smile, even though that position screams _brooding_ worse than any of Sasuke's lurking ever did.

Carefully, he takes a step out onto the jut of cold black metal, avoiding the rain gutter that sends water spilling down onto the village below. It’s so high that birds fly below them, and the novelty has yet to fully wear off, but it’s also a long fall. Iruka can stick to walls and throw up barriers, but he can't fly, so he minds his feet as he crosses the buttress. The end where it should curve down to meet the next building is broken off, a jaggedly sheared edged that pours like a waterfall when it rains heavily. A perfect place for brooding, apparently, though Iruka’s never quite been theatrical enough to require a dramatic backdrop for his moods.

He leans down, setting his hands on scarred shoulders before he folds to sit behind him, wrapping his arms around his waist and resting his cheek on bare skin. “Aren’t you cold?” he asks.

Obito lifts his head, a rough breath escaping him. Carefully, he presses a hand over Iruka’s where they rest on his stomach, but he stays where he is, staring at the orange mask in his grip. “Aren’t you?” he returns.

Not anymore. Obito is like a furnace, and Iruka isn't sure if it’s the Katon affinity or the Mokuton, but he always feels as warm as sunshine. He hums, closing his eyes, and breathes out into Obito's skin. There's a breeze picking up, and times like this Iruka can feel his age more than most moments. He’s never been an active shinobi in the way of most, became a teacher young and only took missions rarely, but in the last three years he’s done more fighting than in all the years before combined.

It’s hardly a bad thing. He came back fourteen years, and it must have been for a reason. He only feels old at odd moments, and he’s not even at forty yet. It’s just…different. Makes him appreciate Obito's warmth a little more.

And then Obito says, very quietly, “I murdered Zetsu.”

Iruka pauses, not quite sure what make of that. Swallows, because he’s been trying to draw Obito away from Zetsu's influence for two years now, but he hadn’t thought it was _working_. Especially not to that extent. Except—

Obito said _murdered_ , not _killed_. A harsh word, implying an emotional connection—Iruka has taught those classes on keywords for undercover shinobi, recognizes the way it jars out of Obito's throat like something distasteful.

“Obito?” he asks quietly, and some sixth sense sends a prickle of wariness curling down his spine.

Deliberately, Obito opens his hand, and the orange mask goes tumbling from his fingertips, right over the side of the building. “Why do you sound so shocked?” he asks, and it’s as bitter as wormwood. “That’s what you’ve been telling me to do, right? And murdering things is what I'm good at.”

Iruka thinks, for maybe half a second, about indulging this fit of concentrated drama. Then he comes to his senses, snaps his head forward, and headbutts Obito in the back of the skull.

With a yelp, Obito rocks forward, surges out of Iruka’s grip and rises, whirling around. He bares his teeth, but the fury on his face isn't the bone-deep type Iruka used to see so often before. This is sharper, shallower; it’s the kind that covers up hurt, and Iruka levels a finger at Obito's chest, stabbing him in the sternum without mercy.

“Why are you _dropping things_ from up here?” he demands. “If that stupid mask lands on someone it could _kill them_!”

“It hit a building,” Obito retorts, and fury snaps in his black eye, pushes him forward a step. “Why do you even _care_ ,” he demands viciously. “You're not an Ame nin.”

Iruka falters, caught off guard. Obito has very deliberately never asked him where he’s from before, and Iruka carefully hasn’t told. He shouldn’t know. He _can't_ —Iruka landed in this time in an entirely separate body from his self in this timeline, spent _maybe_ a month in Konoha before he left to go see if he couldn’t fix more things about the world.

“Wha—neither are _you_!” he protests, and immediately wants to smack himself for it.

Obito's pretty mouth curls in a snarl. “No,” he says, low and dangerous. “I'm not. And you knew that when you decided to _seduce me_ , didn’t you?”

Iruka’s heartbeat stutters in his chest, and—two whole years since he thought like that, but—it’s slightly true, isn't it? the very first time he smiled at Obito, it was with that in mind, slipping into Obito's bed and maybe trying to assassinate him while he slept, but—

Not for two years now. Not for so long, not since the first time he woke and Obito was sitting in the frame of the window, smiling at the rain. Not since he realized, the way Kakashi must have once, that something in Obito was still a little boy who wanted peace, but who had had the path to it twisted beneath his feet until it was a different dream entirely.

Obito takes his silence as confirmation, and his face twists. Not rage, this time. _Pain_ , and something in Iruka’s chest lurches at the sight of it. He steps forward even as Obito turns, reaches out, but Obito curls a hand around the back of his neck, and it’s like his whole body curves beneath the weight of what he’s feeling. He snarls, loud and harsh and angry, and throws himself down on the edge of the broken buttress, fingers tangled in his own hair.

“Damn it,” he hisses. “ _Damn it_. I—”

“I don’t know if you noticed,” Iruka says, too loud, on the edge of yelling, “but I _kept_ seducing you!”

A pause, frozen. Iruka’s breaths are too loud, his pulse is too fast, but he can't _stop_. “You're an _idiot_! I haven’t left, have I? I haven’t _killed you_ , have I? I—I _want_ to be here! So why does it matter where I came from before?”

Obito's laugh is a jagged, wretched thing, but he rises to his feet again. “It doesn’t,” he says. “It doesn’t fucking matter at all. I murdered Zetsu, because he was planning to get rid of you. He didn’t _know_.”

The way he says that last word, it has weight. It _aches_ , like an open wound, and Iruka takes a step forward automatically, reaching out for him. He’s held Obito enough nights when the nightmares are bad, when he dreams of red moons or killing his teacher or a thousand other terrible things, his fault and not, or on the days when his body hurts like it’s tearing apart. It’s instinct to comfort him, and beyond that, Iruka _cares_. He wants to pull Obito into his arms and make the pain stop.

“Know what?” he asks, and the words crack in his mouth like he’s a teenager again. “What didn’t he know, Obito?”

“Anything,” Obito says and laughs, bitter and vicious. “Damn it, just—leave. Get out of Ame before tonight, Iruka. I won't be held responsible for what I do if you're still around when I come looking for you.”

Iruka hesitates, but—that doesn’t sound like a threat. He’s heard Obito's threats before, explicit and quiet and dangerous because he _means them_. This isn't so much an empty threat, but there are shades of that to it. Empty of violence, maybe, and Iruka thinks _what if_ with the same mad hope that once drove him against his closest friend to save a boy he should have hated.

 _When I come looking for you_ , Iruka thinks, and steps forward, presses his palm to the center of that bare back and watches Obito's shoulders slump, his head fall. Open, vulnerable, and even a chuunin Academy teacher knows how to snap his spine from this position.

(Iruka had meant to, that first night, when he stirred from his bed to find Obito still asleep beside him. There was a poison on the senbon hidden in the mattress, bought from Orochimaru and specifically created to inhibit Hashirama’s cells, and Iruka had sat there for minutes that stretched into hours, watching Obito breathe, wondering why he didn’t just take the kill. Easy, and a painless death, and Obito was the one responsible for setting the Kyuubi on Konoha. He was the reason Iruka grew up an orphan. He was the reason Iruka’s parents were killed fighting a creature of malice and rage and chakra that they never stood a chance against.

Maybe he would have taken the kill that night, or the next time Obito sought him out, or the time after that, but—

There was a stray cat Obito fed, and then there was an old lady whose bags he carried. There was rain that made him smile and a wide, light-filled room above the village that put him at ease. There was a laugh, rough and unpracticed, that made something in Iruka’s chest go tight and soft at once.

Iruka’s never run many missions, never had to seduce someone to kill them later. He’s always been told he’s too kind, gets too easily invested. Good traits for a teacher, and that’s all Iruka has ever wanted or needed to be. Bad traits in an assassin, but—

Maybe it’s foolish of him, but Iruka can't even begin to regret his failure.)

“And just what are you going to do, if you find me after tonight?” he challenges, and steps closer still, pressing himself up against Obito's back. He wraps his arms around him, palms pressed flat to his chest, and the pace of Obito's heart is hectic and frantic and strong.

For a long, long moment, Obito is still, tense under his touch. Then, with a sound that’s dragged up from his chest and scrapes out of his throat, he slumps back into Iruka’s hold, turning his head to press their temples together.

“I’ll lock you up and keep you forever,” he says. “I’ll stop caring that you never meant any of this, and I—”

Iruka huffs, offense rising, and pinches him hard. It makes Obito squeak, startled, and Iruka hauls him back a pace, away from the ledge and the cold wind. “I've never said _anything_ I don’t mean!” he protests.

Obito laughs like it’s being pulled from him against his will. “Even when you called me a melodramatic brat?” he asks.

“ _Especially_ that,” Iruka says, eyeing the drop below them, the shards of orange porcelain he can see on the rooftop below.

Obito laughs again, easier this time, and when Iruka tightens his grip on him he sinks into it instead of pulling away. A low breath, and he lets his legs fold, slides down to sit curled at Iruka’s feet. His head falls against Iruka’s thigh, and he closes his eye, expression caught halfway between humor and pain.

“Zetsu's dead,” he says. “I'm giving Yahiko control of Akatsuki again. I destroyed the notes on Edo Tensei. That’s what you wanted, isn't it?”

Not a challenge, this time. A plea. _I'm trying to make you happy,_ Iruka hears. _Is this the way to do it?_

 _I just want you safe,_ he almost says, but the words stick in his throat, too raw, too honest.

“What I really want is a dog,” he says instead, because he can't think of anything else and he’s _stupid_ when it comes to words. “And maybe ramen.”

Obito makes a sound of amusement, his eye flickering open as he looks up at Iruka. Turns his head, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to Iruka’s thigh, and says, “Would you take a half-mad mutt?”

Iruka’s chest aches. He reaches down, catching Obito's hands, and pulls him back to his feet. Pulls him in, and kisses that scarred, pretty mouth, so desperate beneath his.

“No,” he says, when he can pull back a bare inch. “Because I want _you_.”

Obito's arms curl around him, wind tight. He presses himself up against Iruka’s body like he can't bear space between them, and buries his face in Iruka’s shoulder.

“Someday,” he says, half-muffled. “You're going to tell me how you know so much about _everything_.”

He’s been saying that for three years now, but he’s never asked directly, and Iruka isn't sure how to say _time travel_ and not sound like he’s been playing with hallucinogens again. But—

“Someday,” he agrees, and means it. He traces the muscles Obito's back, enjoying the shiver it gets him, and then kisses Obito's cheek. “Can we go back to bed now? It’s cold.”

Obito doesn’t answer, just pulls him back towards the apartment, steps perfectly steady on the narrow buttress. The expression on his face is something fierce and sweet, and when he drags Iruka into a kiss Iruka answers it with everything he has, pulls Obito down onto the bed and rolls on top of him. The rare morning sunlight falls across his face, brings out the shadows even as it leaves him vulnerable and bare.

“Zetsu was going to kill you,” Obito says, and laughs, and it’s a bare, raw sound as he reaches up, cupping his face. “One bright thing in this black hell, and he was going to take it from me.”

Iruka kisses his palm, doesn’t tell him that he’s a bright thing himself, trying to change, trying to be better now that he’s been given a path to walk. He just slides his hands over Obito's skin, steals the cry from his mouth with a heady kiss, and presses him down into the mattress as their bodies tangle.

“He didn’t know I loved you,” Obito tells him, soft and bare like it’s a secret, and wipes the tears from Iruka’s cheeks before he kisses him again.


End file.
